Moses
Beyond the Grave
by Linda Rex
November 6, 2022, PROPER 27—Lately I have been learning a lot of new things about the apostle Paul and the culture in which he lived as a missionary, sharing the good news of God’s love in Christ. One thing that I have seen in a new way is how Paul so often paid close attention to where people were in their understanding with regards to God, met them where they were, and then worked to bring them closer to the truth as he understood it.
In Paul’s writings, we can see him agree with his opponents, but then, as he explained where he actually stood on a topic, he taught what was in exact opposition to what his opponents taught. This makes reading Paul’s writings challenging, because we have to follow him through his entire thought process before we decide exactly where he stood on a topic.
In our gospel reading for this Sunday, we see the same method at work. Apparently, Paul used the same method as Jesus, in reaching out to opponents by beginning where they were to bring them to where they needed to be. What Jesus did in totality (joined us in our darkness to bring us into his light), he seemed to do even in everyday conversations with those who stood in opposition to him.
When approached by the Sadducees of his day, Jesus took into account their cultural background and religious beliefs. These men were from a wealthy, aristocratic class of people who believed that the only part of the Old Testament scriptures they should pay close attention to were those in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. They also rejected any idea that there may be supernatural forces at work in the world, and this included angels or miracles.
When they saw the Pharisees and scribes were silenced by Jesus, in spite of the clever ways in which they attempted to trap him, the Sadducees pulled out their best weapon, a story which usually succeeded in shutting up their opposition. This story involved levirate marriage—a practice which many Americans would not be familiar with, or would consider strange and maybe even offensive.
Levirate marriage makes a lot of sense to people in cultures and times when the death of a spouse would leave a woman vulnerable and without any means of provision. It also guarantees that a family’s property would remain within the ownership of the family and would not become a part of some other family’s possession. When practiced, a woman who lost a husband and had no children to inherit the property would be given to the man’s brother as wife so he could give her an heir to inherit the family’s property.
The story these Sadducees told involved a woman who lost a husband, but then was married to his six brothers, one after another, who each died without giving her an heir. Then she died. Honestly, I feel sorry for the poor woman—I would have died too, just to get it all over with. But it is just a story and meant simply to be a means by which the Sadducees could ask their penetrating question in hopes of trapping Jesus: “When they rise in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?”
First off, Jesus knew who the ones asking the question were. He knew that what happened to their family’s wealth when someone died was important to them. He knew that marriage did not mean to them what God intended it to mean—a sacred space which revealed the reality of God’s presence and nature as two persons were brought together and made one. And Jesus knew their hearts, that they simply sought to discredit him and shut him up.
Jesus started where they were, and worked to bring them into a new point of view, pointing out to them their mistaken way of looking at God, the resurrection, themselves, and others. The common understanding of many in the Jewish culture of that day was that life would simply continue in the resurrection, meaning that married life would continue beyond the grave. Jesus didn’t attempt to clarify every detail regarding life in the resurrection, but did make some significant points.
The first thing Jesus pointed out was that our existence in this life is much different than what our existence will be when we are resurrected. Those who rise in glory will be like the angels in that they will not be performing marriages or be married to one another like people do in this life. Contrary to so much of our popular media images regarding the afterlife, humans do not become angels when they die—their existence simply resembles that of angels in that it does not involve marriage and procreation in the same way it does nows and they no longer die. And there is no reason to believe we will lose our gender identity in the resurrection, but that is a different topic all together.
Getting back to the story, we see Jesus continuing to meet them where they were to bring them to a new place. The Sadducees believed that there was no resurrection, and used Moses in order to prove this point. So Jesus brought up Moses himself, pulling from the prophet’s initial encounter with God on the mountain where he spoke from the burning bush, and showed that even Moses spoke of the resurrection. God called himself, “I Am that I Am.” And he called himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
As human beings, we live in linear time, where one event happens after another. We have a past, a present, a future, and a death. God, however, lives in a different way than we do, since he is present in every moment in all time, having created space and time for us to live within. God, in Christ, entered our time and became present to each of us in every moment in a new way. These are mind-blowing thoughts that I won’t dive too deeply into. But what Jesus was saying here was that God was present in that moment to Abraham, who had his existence in him, at the same time he was present to the Sadducees. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
This should be very comforting to us. Jesus was, at that moment, in the process of doing what was needed so that every human being could participate in the resurrection from the dead. Elsewhere in scripture, we are told that because of Christ’s self-offering, every person participates in the resurrection from the dead, some rising to life and others rising to face judgment, a judgment which is meant to purify, heal, restore, and renew, not to annihilate or destroy (see John 5:29), for God’s heart is that no person perishes, but that each and every one repents (2 Peter 3:9).
Though I am grateful I live in a culture where I do not have to marry my husband’s brother, should Ray die someday, I’m even more grateful for what Jesus has done so that each of us might live forever. What a precious gift God gives us by being present to us each and every moment through Jesus in the Spirit! We are not orphans. We are not left to do things all on our own under our own strength. No, we are each a beloved child of the Father, who in Christ by the Spirit has been given our own chair at the divine table with our own name carved on it, personally crafted by the carpenter from Nazareth, Jesus Christ.
Thank you, dear Father, for including us in your life, for being present to us in every moment, having prepared a place for us at your table, now and forever, through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
27“Now there came to Him some of the Sadducees (who say that there is no resurrection), 28and they questioned Him, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that “if a man’s brother dies,” having a wife, “and he is childless, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to his brother.” 29Now there were seven brothers; and the first took a wife and died childless; 30and the second 31and the third married her; and in the same way all seven died, leaving no children. 32Finally the woman died also. 33In the resurrection therefore, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven had married her.’ 34Jesus said to them, ‘The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” 38Now He is not the God of the dead but of the living; for all live to Him.’ ” Luke 20:27–38 NASB
[Printable copy: https://newhope4me.files.wordpress.com/2022/10/olitbeyond-the-grave.pdf ]
Minding What Matters Most
By Linda Rex
August 30, 2020, Proper 17—The pandemic and its associated quarantine have complicated our lives in so many ways. We are bombarded with new distractions, frustrations, and limitations. Some of us are way out of our comfort zone as we attempt new tasks or abandon comfortable routines. It may seem as though we are caught in the midst of a cyclone of mini-crises with no visible means of escape.
Perhaps it would be helpful to see ourselves on a journey where suddenly we are faced with a desolate mountainside to climb—struggling to carry ourselves forward, navigating dangerous outcroppings and unforeseen chasms in our effort to reach the other side. This journey is never made alone, but with the One who has made himself our companion—Jesus Christ. He says to you and to me, “Follow me.” He already knows the way and intends to take us safely to the other side, no matter what may we may face on the way.
The reality is that when Jesus calls us to follow him he knows that life is going to be a struggle for us. To leave behind our comfortable, cozy mattress to find rest in a sleeping bag on a rocky mountainside is not an easy decision. Along the journey, we may decide we’re done with traveling and start looking for a cushy oasis to settle down into. And our adversary loves to supply us with one if it means we will stop following our Lord and Savior and return to our life of sin.
We need to be like Moses, who when the Lord spoke to him from the burning bush said simply, “Here I am.” To simply offer ourselves to God one more time in this particular moment is to follow Jesus. In the offering of ourselves to God, though, we must remember that God will come to us, reveal himself to us, and call us to join with him on a difficult task. Moses told God, “I’m here” and God told him to go lead the Israelites out of Egypt—a breathtaking task for a self-effacing shepherd on a mountainside.
Jesus had just blessed Peter for recognizing him as Messiah, the Son of God, when he began to tell his disciples what the Sanhedrin was going to do to him when he got to Jerusalem. Peter emphatically refused to believe that Jesus would be crucified and die at the hands of the Jewish leaders. Without realizing it, Peter gave in to the adversary’s effort to distract Jesus from the path he knew he had to follow for the sake of all humanity. What seemed to be loving, brotherly compassion and care in Peter’s mind turned out to be a not too subtle temptation for Jesus in complete opposition to the will and purposes of God.
Strong-willed, impulsive Peter seemed to be struggling with the idea that God calls the shots in this world and that sometimes those decisions God makes are not what we think should happen. What is most important to us is not always what is most important to God. He lives in the realm of eternity—we live in the everyday of the temporary.
It seems that if we were to design the Christian life on our terms, it might look like this: A person comes to faith, says the right words, gets baptized, goes to church, everything in their life begins to start working out properly now, they never get sick, and they start making all kinds of money since now they are giving God his portion. Do you see the issue? Throughout this whole life experience—nothing goes wrong, no one gets hurt, and there is no suffering. But it’s not reality.
Jesus knew the human experience. He knew that the minute any of us stepped foot in one of his footprints, the adversary would be on top of them immediately. He knew how easy it would be for us to return to our old ways of thinking and acting instead of embracing our new life in him. He knew that the only path to true transformation of our humanity would be the one through death into resurrection.
So Jesus says to us that we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow him. There is a cost to following Jesus and it involves dying to our old ways of living and being, and embracing the reality that there will be suffering and struggle in the process. We need to realize that just as the crowds ridiculed and taunted Jesus, there will be those who oppose our choosing to follow him down the path to the cross. There will be tough decisions to make and difficult struggles to end unhealthy relationships and begin new Christ-centered ones.
And there will be circumstances which come up in our lives where we struggle to make sense of what God has done or is doing. Why does God allow some people to die when others who do so much evil continue to live and cause such destruction in this world? There are so many difficult questions for which we have no answers.
We must come back to that place where we simply recognize the holy ground of God’s presence, take off our shoes, and humbly say to him, “Here I am.” We are but creatures and he is the loving Creator, and he has joined us on our journey, shared our pain and suffering, died our death, and sent his Spirit to be present with us in every moment. We are not alone on this journey—and he will bring us safely to the other side. And that is enough.
When the apostle Paul describes the Christian life, he gives some examples of what it looks like. In Romans 12:9–21, he tells the followers of Jesus to love without hypocrisy, to hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good. He encourages them to be diligent and fervent in their service to the Lord. He reminds them to persevere in the midst of life’s trials and to devote themselves to prayer and providing for the needs of their spiritual brothers and sisters. Then he gets to the really difficult things—blessing those who persecute them, associating with the poverty-stricken and needy, and never exacting revenge on those who do evil or harm them.
The life of a follower of Jesus is never intended to always be convenient, simple, and comfortable. If anything, it is an arduous struggle. But it’s never done alone. We have the companionship of our spiritual brothers and sisters to lift us up, encourage, and strengthen us. And we have the intimate companionship of our Lord and Savior who indwells us by the Spirit. On our journey, he is present in every moment as we listen, heed, and yield ourselves to him, to give us direction, encouragement, inspiration, and correction.
The life of faith in Jesus is full of moments of joy, peace, hope, and fellowship. We do not walk alone, but have fellow travelers with us on our journey. Yes, there will be difficulties, struggles, and disappointments. But in the midst of whatever may be occurring, we can know that we need only say, “Here I am” and we will find ourselves encountering the living Lord. He is as near as his name on our lips— “Jesus.” He is as close as the breath we breathe—the Spirit who dwells in us. Take a moment right now to feel his presence in you and with you—and commit once again to following him wherever he leads.
Heavenly Father, you are the source of all things—our life and our existence are in you. Jesus, you went before us, living our life and dying our death so that we might rise with you into new life. Spirit, remind us again that we are not alone on this journey, but we have God’s real presence in us and with us as we follow Jesus wherever he leads. We are here, Lord—bring us to where us want us to be. In your Name we pray. Amen.
“From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.’ But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.’ Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’” Matthew 16:21–26 NASB
More Than Just a Law
by Linda Rex
A while ago I wrote a blog “The Curses and the Ten Commandments” in which I talked about our assumptions regarding the nature of God and the curses and law he gave to Israel. I believe God’s intent was to call his people to a deeper way of thinking and believing that involved a relationship of covenant love with him and with one another rather than to just obey a list of do’s and don’t’s.
In my daily readings I’m in the book of Joshua now, and in chapter 8 I came across the circumstance where Joshua and the nation of Israel actually put into effect what Moses instructed them to do at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. It is interesting that it says that they did it “just as Moses the servant of the Lord had given command at first to bless the people of Israel.” (v. 33) God’s intent from the beginning was to bless Israel, not to curse them. His heart toward them was love.
Here at this place the entire law was read to the people of Israel and the strangers who were among them. The law of Moses was also written on stone at this place. Was this just the Ten Commandments, or was it a summary of all the laws we find in the Torah? I guess I would need to look back into the traditions of the nation to find out the answer to that question.
But the point here is that after the long journey in the wilderness in which the older generation passed away and the new generation came across the Jordan into the Promised Land, Israel renewed their covenant relationship with God. They heard what it looks like to live in a loving relationship with God and with one another. They were told what would happen if they chose to live out of sync with who they were as God’s covenant people. The new generation was called to love God and love one another as they entered into their new life in their new land.
It is instructive that this event occurred after what happened at Ai. After Israel had crossed the Jordan River, God had toppled the walls of Jericho, allowing the Israelites to completely demolish the city. The Israelites were on such a high from their success that they took off to Ai and attacked that city as well. But there was a small problem—they didn’t ask God first. And so they were routed at their first attempt and suffered a humiliating defeat.
What they didn’t realize was that somewhere in the midst of their nation was a person who had violated the covenant relationship. This person had insulted the God who was the nation’s Warrior by taking things from Jericho which had been devoted to God, and hiding them among his personal belongings. Achan had stolen from God. Sure, it was a little thing, but God is in the little things as well as the big things. All of life is open to and revealed to the God who lives not only in heaven but who also is omnipresent—around, in and with us moment by moment.
After this issue was resolved, then God gave the nation instructions on how to attack the city of Ai. And it was defeated, just as he told them it would be. God knew that if the Israelites took on the people of Canaan on their own, they would be destroyed. But in relationship with him, no one could defeat them. He was committed to their success, not their failure. But only as they participated in his plan for their lives. Only as they lived in loving relationship with him.
It seems pretty gruesome to us today to think that God would instruct one nation to destroy another nation. But he had his reasons and that’s food for an entirely different discussion. Israel had a reason for her existence—to be the womb of the Messiah, and there were things that had to be done to prepare the way for the events of that sacred Bethlehem night when Jesus was born. All these people who lived and died were taken up in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus our Messiah—so God made it all right in the end.
The key thought here is though, God doesn’t exist in a vacuum somewhere out in space or up in heaven, isolated from us as human beings. True, he is transcendent—completely other than we are, and we only know his immanence or nearness as he chooses to reveal himself to us. But he also chooses to be in relationship with us as human beings. He chooses to relate to us one on one. And he proved this by coming and existing in our humanity as the man Jesus Christ.
We are often so busy living our lives, doing what we do to survive, that we don’t stop and sit in the stillness with God. We don’t sense God in the quiet and in the active moments of our lives where he is truly present all the time. We, who were created to live in relationship with God and were given that relationship freely through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, live as though God doesn’t exist. But he does—and we would know it, if we would just make room for him in our hearts and lives.
So, perhaps, like the Israelites, we need to take the time to sit and listen to the words of love God has for us in his Word and by his Spirit. Perhaps we need to climb up on our divine Daddy’s knees and nestle against his chest and feel his divine Breath against our cheek.
Maybe we need to sense his presence with us as we mow the lawn and close that business deal. Just possibly, we might realize he’s smiling too as we see our child score the winning goal for the soccer team. For he loves each and every one of us and he waits with open arms to embrace us and hold us close anytime we choose to run to him. Maybe even now would be a good time to begin this new way of living life—in close companionship with the One who loves us with a never ending love.
Our heavenly Dad, who not only lives in eternity but is also present in us, with us and for us at each moment, thank you for your great unfailing love. Remind each of us today how much you love us. Show us that we are precious in your sight. Teach us how to create room for you in our lives and hearts. We want to participate in all that you are doing—to share life with you now and forever through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit. Amen.
“He wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written, in the presence of the sons of Israel. All Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, the stranger as well as the native. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had given command at first to bless the people of Israel.” Joshua 8:32-33 NASB
The Curses and The Ten Commandments
by Linda Rex
Lately I’ve been starting out my day reading a chapter from the Old Testament and a chapter from the New Testament. Today I was reading Chapter 27 in the book of Deuteronomy. Here Moses instructed the people about something they were to do when they entered the Promised Land. They were to divide the people up, with six tribes standing on Mount Gerizim and six tribes standing on Mount Ebal. Then the Levites were to recite curses and all the people were to respond with “Amen” to each curse.
Something occurred to me as I was reading this. It was something I never played close attention to when I read it before. And it really bugged me—enough that I had to stop and think seriously about it for a while.
If I were to ask you what many traditional and fundamentalist Christians have posted in their house or office somewhere, what would you say? I was in someone’s office the other day, and there it was, in bold print, so everyone who came in couldn’t miss it. Many Christians insist that the Ten Commandments are the trademark measurement of goodness and badness and what matters most to God in our relationship with him. So they post them where they and others can see them.
That being the case, I was stunned to see that nowhere in this list of sins these curses were for, were the Ten Commandments specifically listed. There wasn’t mention of a single commandment in relation to God and how the people were to relate to him. The others were related to some of the other six commandments, but they didn’t at all appear in the form you would see in Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5 where the Ten Commandments are listed.
If the Ten Commandments were so important for the people to be keeping, why weren’t they listed with the curses? And I found that it is interesting in the same respect that each of these things listed had to do with proper relationships between people, both in the family and in the community. The last one in the list was a summary statement pronouncing a curse on anyone who did not uphold the words of the law.
Then a blessing is pronounced in Chapter 28 and it has everything to do with Israel’s relationship with God and how they participated in their covenant of love with him. The blessings and cursings described in Chapter 28 are related to the way Israel behaved in their relationship with God and whether or not they lived in communion with him as the law instructed them to. The blessings and curses had to do with whether or not Israel as a nation trusted in God alone and was faithful to their covenant relationship with him.
In both of these cases, the Ten Commandments was supplanted to some extent, or shall I say, surpassed by, the greater law of covenant love. Our relationships with God and with each other are what really matter in the end. The consequence of living for ourselves and not living in communion and godly love with one another and God is well described in this listing of curses. And the blessings that come with living in the communion of the Holy Spirit with one another is clear to see as well. It explains why Jesus, when asked, said the most important commandment is to love God with one’s whole heart, soul, mind and being, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Instead of seeing the law as a list of do’s and don’t’s that separate good people from bad people, we can see the law as an expression of what it looks like to live in loving relationship with God and each other. The simplicity of this is expressed in the NASB when it says that the people were to confirm the words of the law by the way in which they lived. We confirm our love relationship with God and each other by the way we treat God and each other, and by what goes on in our hearts and minds in each moment of each day as we interact with the world around us.
Going on beyond this, we are told by the Apostle Paul that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us…” (Gal. 3:13) So even our shortcomings in living out a relationship of love with God and each other are covered by our Savior. The prophetic word of Isaiah to Israel was that God would author a new covenant in which he said he would “put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer. 31:33). This is reflected on by the author of Hebrews, who explains the gift of God is the internal eternal Law of God, Jesus Christ, who has joined himself with humanity and who stands in our place as both the Lawgiver and the Lawkeeper.
Now I’m not against people posting the Ten Commandments places as a reminder of how to treat God and each other. That can be a good thing. But it is easy to hold to this external expression of goodness and badness by which we judge one another and to totally miss the mystery of godliness—Christ in us, the hope of glory. It is Christ who defines us, who lives his life in us and through us by his Holy Spirit. It is God who plants within us the heart, soul and mind to love him and each other from the core of our being with his own very own love, planted within us through Jesus Christ in the Spirit.
How often I have encountered people who are very busy with the externals of Christianity, but who are also vindictive, hateful, spiteful and even cruel—because the law has become to them a dividing point between goodness and badness between them and other people, and they have missed the One who gives Life and offers us an intimate relationship with himself through Christ in the communion of the Holy Spirit.
They are eating of the tree of good and evil and have missed entirely the tree of life offered us in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension. This seems to me to be the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone. And all these curses described in Deuteronomy cannot begin to describe what it’s like to live out one’s life in rejection of the One who is our life, our love, our obedience, our peace. That seems to me to describe in many ways what a personal hell looks like.
Dearest God, Thank you for giving us your Son so that we can live in loving relationship with you and each other. Thank you for your precious Spirit who opens our eyes and minds and hearts to see Jesus Christ living within, and who makes us receptive to the Truth and Life he is. Grant us the grace to seek Life in Jesus Christ instead of seeking to be our own gods and to live independently of you and each other. We trust you will finish your work in our hearts, minds and lives, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
“’Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’” Deut. 27:26 NASB
“Jesus answered, ‘The foremost is, “HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.” The second is this, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’” Mark 12:29–31 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 